Pollan to WAC, Harris to Blytheville

Plus, Douglas Blackmon and Books in Bloom in Eureka Springs.

Part of the kickoff for the Walton Arts Center's Artosphere festival includes a chat at 7:30 p.m. May 3 with Michael Pollan, author of the bestselling real-food manifestos "The Omnivore's Dilemma," "In Defense of Food" and "Food Rules: An Eater's Manual." Pollan will discuss his work with Kyle Kellams, of Fayetteville NPR affiliate KUAF's Ozarks at Large. Afterward, there will be a Q&A and a book signing in the lobby. Tickets range from $25-$75 and can be purchased at www.waltonartscenter.org.

Charlaine Harris, author of the bestselling Sookie Stackhouse series, will be in Blytheville May 8 to meet fans and sign copies of "Deadlocked," the latest in the series, which was the basis for the HBO program "True Blood." Harris will speak at The Ritz Civic Center at 7 p.m., and then she'll be at That Bookstore in Blytheville to sign books. In related news, there's another TV show in the works for Harris. The SyFy Channel will turn her Harper Connelly Mysteries fantasy series into a show called "Grave Sight."

On May 11, Hendrix Collegealum and Pulitzer Prize winnerDouglas Blackmon will give a talk at the Main Library's Darragh Center as part of the J.N. Heiskell Distinguished Lecture series. Blackmon's book, "Slavery by Another Name" shines light on an often overlooked period after the Emancipation Proclamation, when African Americans were essentially re-enslaved through arbitrary arrests and enormous "fines," for which they were forced to labor in mines, quarries, fields and plantations.

In Eureka Springs, you can check out Books in Bloom Literary Festival on May 20. The free program features presentations, readings and signings from about 20 authors, including Crescent Dragonwagon, Phillip Margolin, C.J. Box, Vanessa Diffenbaugh, Ernest Dumas, Tim Ernst, Kristin Kauffman, Kevin Brockmeier and many others, Crescent Hotel and Spa, noon-5 p.m.

The Toad Suck Review, the annual literary journal published by UCA's Department of Writing in the College of Fine Arts and Communication, recently was named one of the 10 best literary magazines launched in 2011 by Library Journal. That publication noted that the TSR "publishes a mix of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, translations, and reviews, and it leans toward the experimental without veering into excessively weird ... [and is] unique enough to distinguish itself from the crowd of literary journals while still being accessible."

More by Robert Bell

On the lasting ripple effect of Chris Selby's Clunk Music Hall.

Most Shared

Gospel and R&B singer and civil rights activist Mavis Staples, who has been inspiring fans with gospel-inflected freedom songs like "I'll Take You There" and "March Up Freedom's Highway" and the poignant "Oh What a Feeling" will come to Little Rock for the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the desegregation of Central High.

Everything that Donald Trump does — make that everything that he says — is calculated to thrill his lustiest disciples. But he is discovering that what was brilliant for a politician is a miscalculation for a president, because it deepens the chasm between him and most Americans.

Watching the Charlottesville spectacle from halfway across the country, I confess that my first instinct was to raillery. Vanilla ISIS, somebody called this mob of would-be Nazis. A parade of love-deprived nerds marching bravely out of their parents' basements carrying tiki torches from Home Depot.